Moira #6: Potluck

Moira’s kept herself entertained for centuries blending in with mortals. Mostly blending in. She’s been the inspiration for a few tall tales over that time, a few new legends, a fair number of conspiracy theories, and so many love poems and war poems and drinking songs and bar fights. That’s been fun! Screw Max and his “you’re bitter and desperately bored” accusation. He was bitter. Although he’d gone pretty well with the IPA.

Yet she can’t help but suspect Max was a warning sign. Maybe all the new gods will be just as toothless, but she can’t count on it. And if Hazel the pika’s out there rolling over traffic or Diana the sheep’s merrily hoof-stomping idiots, they might attract more trouble than they can handle, of both the mortal and immortal variety.

Casually uplifting new gods isn’t something Moira is supposed to do, in some cosmic, mythic sense. Granted, it happens in a few of the old folktales, and she wasn’t the only one of the gods who’d done it. She wasn’t the only one of the gods who got in trouble for it, either. So she hasn’t done it for a very, very long time.

“So why the hell did you start?” she mutters aloud, glowering down at the sidewalk, hands thrust in her jeans pockets as she strides along a quiet residential street. She’s been asking herself that for a day and a half now, and it’s why she’s here. This should be Diana’s neighborhood.

It’s a nice enough neighborhood, houses old enough to feel lived in but not old enough to feel historic, sidewalks with a few stains and cracks, a few trees that could tell their own tales. A little too working class to attract the critical mass of hipsters needed to kickstart gentrification, which is another plus. She can hear a radio somewhere, water splashing off a car, children playing, birds in trees, and as she rounds the corner, the huge crowd of people in front of a small, well-kept house.

Huh. Well, that would be it.

As she approaches, she sees that while the crowd isn’t all obligate herbivores, there’s few classic predator types. A lot of hoofers, rabbits and mice and rats, hedgehogs, bats, armadillos. No other hares that she sees, though. Some look like they live right around here, but some look too well-dressed, and others look like they might not live anywhere with a roof. There’s cars lined up and down this street, from junkers to gleaming electric sedans.

The crowd isn’t just in front of the house. Hundreds of people spill out into the road, corner to corner. As Moira wades into the flock, it feels less like a mob than a street fair. People singing folk songs, scratching chalk drawings on the sidewalk, selling tie-dye t-shirts—no, making tie-dye t-shirts. About a dozen people are unfolding plastic utility tables on the house’s lawn, setting down pots and dishes of food. At least half of them, interestingly, are carnivores: a tigress, a wolf, two foxes, a coyote, an otter. The food looks and smells vegetarian, though. People are lining up like it’s a church potluck. There’s only enough food for a few dozen, unless the tabloid story’s right. Which it probably is.

The sounds around Moira are changing, becoming less raucous, murmurs rippling through the crowd. She slows down, realizing people are staring at her, pointing. “You are Lady Moira, yes?” a young mouse stammers as he looks up at her. He doesn’t wait for a response before turning around and yelling like a town crier: “Make way for the Divine Lady Moira!”

She follows him, trying not to grimace, as he parts the crowd. Well, she’d wondered if she’d just refused to admit to herself how much she’d missed all the worshipful pomp and circumstance she sometimes got in the mortal realm, and she’s relieved to find the answer is: no. Fuck no. And how did he recognize her, anyway? She’s not doing anything that shows off a divine aspect, jokes about tight jeans notwithstanding.

“Lady Diana has told us all about you,” he gushes, leading her up toward the house’s front door.

“Oh.” That explains the recognition, except it doesn’t, because she and Diana had met for all of five minutes. Hell of a basis to uplift somebody on, wasn’t it? She hears Max’s exasperated voice in her head: you can’t go around just handing out quasi-divinity like party favors.

Before they reach the door, it swings open, seemingly under its own power. A roar goes up from the crowd. Diana stands there, the black sheep woman dressed in simple red sleeveless robes, hands clasped in front of her. Simple, but resplendent. She shines. For a woman who was mortal a mere month ago, she’s got the divine aspect down cold. Moira can hear worshippers bursting into ecstatic tears behind her.

Diana’s eyes widen slightly when she sees the hare, but she doesn’t lose a drop of composure, smiling and pulling Moira into a hug. The crowd’s cheering only intensifies. Then the sheep spins the hare around, entwining her fingers with Moira’s and lifting their linked hands overhead as if they’d just won a gold medal.

Then the sheep addresses the young mouse. “I’ll be out soon… William, yes?” He nods, trembling, eyes as big as saucers. Moira gives even odds he’s going to either orgasm or pass out in the next thirty seconds. “I’ll be out soon, William,” Diana continues. “I have to talk with Lady Moira. Everyone should start eating.”

“Y-yes, holiness,” he squeaks.

Diana steps back into the house, pulling Moira along with her. She pushes the door closed, locks it, takes a deep breath, then fixes Moira with an angry expression. “What the ever-loving hell have you done to me?”

Moira looks around the house rather than meeting Diana’s eyes. It’s a small living-slash-dining room, well-kept, a little old-fashioned. There’s a few worn mythology books with library tags on the dining room table. “It looks to me like you’ve taken right to it. You’re dressed the part more than I am.”

“They made me the robes!” Diana waves her hoofed fingers toward the front door. “It was just a few of them out there at first, but now it’s… that. Every day.”

“What are you doing that’s bringing them here?”

“Nothing!” Diana throws her hands up in the air. “You made me decide if I was a good goddess or a bad goddess but you didn’t even stay and help. Why did you do this to me? Why me?”

Moira sighs, sitting down on the sofa. “I’m way out of practice at being a divine mentor and I’d be a terrible one anyway.” She looks up at the sheep. “And… I don’t know why you.”

Diana looks aghast. “You just did this to me on a whim?”

“Did you do that on a whim?” She jerks a thumb toward the front lawn.

“No! What am I supposed to do, turn them away?”

“Nothing’s making you responsible for your worshippers but you. I ignored mine for a thousand years. But you just knew what to do and how to do it, didn’t you? See, you’re a good goddess.”

Diana drops into the seat by Moira with a tired bleat. “I ate my former boss alive, Moira. I dropped him in a salad. I’m a mean goddess.”

“Did he deserve it?”

“He’d harassed every woman in the office and physically assaulted two, and I knew he’d keep getting away with it until…”

“Someone covered him with ranch dressing.”

“Ha ha.” She runs a hand through her thick hair. “I just tried to see what I could do after you left me in that grocery store, if I could do what you did. And I can. I can shrink people. Or become a hundred feet tall. I can walk on water!”

“Hey, you can walk on water and be a hundred feet tall.”

The sheep isn’t putting up with the humor. She still looks like she wants to cry. “I’ve killed people. People, plural. And I don’t feel bad about it but I feel horrible about not feeling bad about it. I feel so far above m… m… I can’t even say it.”

“Mortals?” Moira supplies.

“Yes! I’m above them but—but I’m responsible for them.” She points at the front door again. “I don’t know any of those people but I’m doing literal miracles for them!”

“Yeah, I heard about the never-ending potluck.” She grins. “And you have them bring their own food, so it’s a miracle they’re helping create. That’s pretty clever.”

“Did you see what was in my grocery cart when we met? If I supplied the food, this would be the Parable of Endless Pizza Rolls.” She droops, twisting her fingers in her hair. “How much of those mythology books are true, Moira?”

“Well, that depends on—”

Abruptly Moira’s somewhere else, sprawled on a grassy hill, a fierce storm blowing in—not half as fierce, though, as the towering, angry sheep goddess with one huge, gleaming hoof raised in the air over the hare. “GIVE ME A STRAIGHT ANSWER,” she thunders.

Moira shakes herself violently, blinking. She’s still on the couch by Diana, who’s staring into space open-mouthed and wide-eyed. “Okay,” Moira mutters, running a hand through her hair. “You are shockingly good at that.”

“Thank you,” Diana mumbles. “Please don’t smite me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She grins. “You’re a pretty hot giantess.”

Diana gives her a reproachful look, but half-smiles. “Will you… will you just answer my questions?”

Moira nods.

“You are the goddess of love.”

“As hard as it is to believe.”

Diana makes a point of looking up and down Moira’s body. “It is not. And… you’re also the goddess of war, because you overthrew the war god.”

The hare crosses her arms. “Not all of the other gods would agree.”

“That’s why they exiled you. Why you’re ‘retired.’” She makes air quotes with her fingers.

Moira grunts, nodding.

Diana drums her fingers on the arm of the sofa. “So you weren’t the only real god in those books.” She nods toward the dining room table. “Where are the others?”

Isn’t that a great question. How does she answer it? She becomes aware of Diana’s eyes on her, and realizes she’s taking a real long time with the question. She takes a deep breath. “They left. I know that sounds like I’m divinely ducking the question, but… every century on the winter solstice I sent a raven off to my brother to ask if Daranu had gotten over himself.”

“The books say you were asking if he’d forgiven you.”

“I didn’t want his forgiveness, I wanted his understanding. I wanted him to see why I rebelled.” She sighs. “The ravens always came back with the same message: no. No, he didn’t understand. No, he didn’t see. And no, he didn’t forgive. And then sometime… maybe thirteen hundred years ago by now, the raven came back with the message I’d sent. No one had read it.” Moira shakes her head. “The other gods are… gone. Up until recently, it’s just been me.”

Diana smiles a little. “Up until me?”

“That’s what I would have said a few days ago.” She tilts her head. “This is gonna be a weird question. Since you became a goddess, has anyone either offered you a job or tried to kill you?”

The sheep blinks rapidly. “I… suppose technically a few of the latter. Crazy guys thinking I’m a demon or whatever. But the herbivores came around just when I touched them.”

“And the carnivores?”

“They didn’t come around. I’ve had a couple more salads.” Diana looks away, then back. “But a job offer?”

“From a group called Celestial Capital. At least some of them are new gods. And they’re… frankly, I don’t know what the hell they’re doing. They’re not like we were. But they want me, and they want you and Hazel. If they can’t co-opt us, they’re going to see us as threats.”

“New gods,” Diana repeats, blinking again. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are there other old gods lifting them up? Are mortals becoming gods on their own? Are they just—just forming out of nothing?”

Moira shrugs. “I wish I had an answer.”

“New gods, running… a bank. I wouldn’t believe it, but it doesn’t feel like anything is off the table now.” She laughs, then tilts her head. “You said you don’t know why you picked me. But… why’d you pick anyone? If you’d just wanted divine company, you’d have hung around. But you didn’t. It’s like you thought, ‘Let’s just make someone a goddess today and see what shows up on the news.’”

“And you did, although so far only the craziest tabloids are covering the sexy giantess stories.” She chews on her lip a moment. “I… honestly, I don’t know why I’m doing magic after a thousand years of nothing. Nothing that’d get me a crowd like that.” She points at the front door. “But the thing about being a goddess is our whims mean something. Eventually.”

“You’re doing this for a purpose even you don’t know yet.” Diana crosses her arms, sighing heavily. “And you think you picked me for a purpose, too.”

Moira knows how that sounds. She shrugs helplessly, spreading her hands, then gestures toward the front lawn again. “I think for all your worries about being a mean goddess, what you’re becoming known for is using your powers to not just feed multitudes, but to help them feed each other. To turn them into a community.”

“That’s… small. That’s something any of you could have done in your sleep.”

“But it’s something we didn’t do, because it’s something none of us would have thought of. I thought I was fighting for downtrodden mortals and maybe I was, but I was doing it by farting around with the gods.” She points at the sheep. “You have a perspective none of the old gods did, including me. You were born, raised, and lived as a mortal.”

Diana furrows her brow, looking thoughtful, and paces around the living room silently. Finally, she looks back to Moira. “Who’s Hazel?”